If Crawford wanted out, why be pissed she was replaced
at least,that's what the trivia page says
Or, did Joan just want to keep having excuses to take vacations away from Bette during the shoot but expecting to return?
I think her ego was big enough to assume that the film would not be made if she couldn't do it. After all the whole reason for making the film was to re team Davis and Crawford. She probably figured that without her, the film was dead in the water.
shareSo,she expected to take her ding-dong time, going back and forth to the hospital? Too much game-playing.
Btw,I asked on another thread how much footage she actually shot.
Well, even if she had a doctor declare she was too ill to finish the film and couldn't do it, I think she figured it would never be made. As to how much she shot, I've seen stills of her arriving at the house talking to Agnes Moorehead, and another still with Joseph Cotten. I don't know if any footage exists; I would LOVE to see it!
sharenotice the quote about Davis practicing Crawford's scene when she arrives at the house which was done in one continuous shot.
Davis says "How did she do it"?
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When Joan Crawford was in Baton Rouge and she came to film Miriam's arrival, there was no dialogue involved. Joan was to arrive at the mansion in a cab, exit, carrying a small case, pay the driver, and lowering her sunglasses, look up at the balcony of the house where Bette, in pigtails and a nightgown, was standing in the shadows, holding a shot gun. The scene was designed to be photographed in a wide continuous shot, and, thanks to Crawford's proficient technical skill, it was completed in one take. Later that evening, when publicist Harry Mines called on Bette in her motel bungalow, he found her standing in the middle of the room practicing Joan's scene. "My God!" said Bette. "I've been here all evening long with a pair of dark glasses and some luggage and I'm imagining getting out of a cab and trying to do that whole business in one gesture. How did she do it?"
Crawford didn't just want out of the picture, she wanted it shut down so everyone would lose.
Pretty self-destructive when one considers how Crawford instead did a bunch of silly William Castle flicks.
That said, I've always been curious about how the picture would have turned out with Crawford, beehive and gargantuan necklaces in tow, wandering the moors and hallways of the mansion at midnight (as Olivia did). Crawford and Davis always struck a similar note, and, given that CHARLOTTE was a much darker picture than BABY JANE, I think it might have made CHARLOTTE almost unbearably creepy in a back-of-the-closet sort of way.
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LBJ's mistress tells all:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPdviZbk-XI&;
Crawford was the right type and probably would had been good,as Olivia was.
shareI think that Crawford would have been good, but menacing from the beginning. de Havallind played it well, excellently keeping the sugary sweetness until the very end with big slap scene and the big reveal. It would have been a different movie with Crawford.
Swing away, Merrill....Merrill, swing away...share
'I think that Crawford would have been good, but menacing from the beginning'
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That may be selling Joan short as an actress.
I thought Olivia did a great job,Joan can play other than a menacing character. Actually, we felt sympathetic for her in HUSH HUSH.
I'm not saying anything wrong with that. I love a good psyhological cat and mouse. I also thought I had read that is exactly what Crawford was doing.
Swing away, Merrill....Merrill, swing away...share
If she had completed this film I think she should have retired from motion pictures and just stuck with television because I don't think this film (no matter how great she would have been in the part) would have done much if anything for her career.
At the time it obviously did nothing for Bette (except for The Nanny) or Olivia. Both ladies wouldn't do anything of note until the late seventies and eighties.
'At the time it obviously did nothing for Bette (except for The Nanny) or Olivia. Both ladies wouldn't do anything of note until the late seventies and eighties.'
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not quite
Bette still worked during he late 60's-early 70's in films. Whether they are of note is relative. Joan's career demise seemed to from her own devices.
If she had completed this film I think she should have retired from motion pictures and just stuck with television because I don't think this film (no matter how great she would have been in the part) would have done much if anything for her career.
At the time it obviously did nothing for Bette (except for The Nanny) or Olivia. Both ladies wouldn't do anything of note until the late seventies and eighties.
CHARLOTTE was nominated for 7 or 8 Oscars, a record for a horror film up until that time. It would have had a much less negative effect on Crawford's career than all those low-rent William Castle movies she did instead (yes, she was great in STRAIT-JACKET, but the movie itself was too "C" level and didn't support her).
Bette and Olivia worked for years after CHARLOTTE, sometimes in notable projects, sometimes not (like film careers always do).
Crawford's reputation was damaged far more by her '60s horror cycle than the other actresses because, with the exception of BABY JANE, Joan chose her projects poorly.
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share
Charlotte would have been a excellent film for Joan the money it made and the nominations but I think she should have ended on a high note and just stuck with television afterwards because even with no charlotte she wasn't offered much from what I've read.
If she had done Charlotte would she still have done Saw What You Did and/or what other movie roles?
Crawford wanted to be in the public eye, no matter what.
Only after she saw a horrible picture of herself with Rosalind Russell in the paper in 1974 did she disappear behind the walls of her Manhattan apartment.
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I'm not convinced that Crawford bowing out was some sort of power play. Davis was pretty mean to her during the filming of Baby Jane. She further pissed Davis off with the Academy Award stunt plus Davis believed that Crawford had somehow convinced Academy members to not vote for Davis when she was nominated for Baby Jane. Davis would have undobutedly made filming a living hell which I think Crawford just couldn't deal with again. By that point, I don't think Crawford had the emotional strength to deal with that kind of drama. Had the film been made 10 years earlier, I think Crawford would have been up for it because she still had some clout that gave her self confidence.
I too think that had she done the film, her career would have fared better and she wouldn't have ended up in the Castle films and Trog of all things.
Crawford's friends, like Wm Sherman, have said she admitted to them that she just didn't want to do the film with Bette.
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LBJ's mistress tells all:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPdviZbk-XI&;
Davis was pretty mean to her during the filming of Baby Jane.
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Good! The postman always rings twice.